


Adjusting

by heterophobe



Series: New Normal [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Implied Self-Worth Issues, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi, Polyamory, Soft Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 11:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11713242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heterophobe/pseuds/heterophobe
Summary: Barry deals with the consequences of flashpoint. So does Cisco.OR: A season 3 AU, in which, barriscowest was canon in the original timeline, and Dante died in both timelines.Partially (because I like validation too much to draft properly) beta'd by ao3/tumblr user @spidergweb. Posted on Tumblr a few weeks ago.





	Adjusting

Things seem normal to begin with (Or, at least… as normal as they can be given Dante’s death) but the more Cisco interacts with Barry, the more consciously he begins to notice something is off.

It’s little things, mostly.

Like the first day Barry doesn’t have to go to work since moving in.

He makes his usual ‘guilt breakfast’ (as Cisco has to come to think of it). He attempts some clearly too-cheerful conversation. And, when the part comes that he’d usually zip off to work he turns…. speechless.

Barry’s mouth opens. Then shuts. Clearly lost for words, he compensates with a forced smile, stammering out some long-winded story about charging his phone, and flashes into his room.

Cisco’d have chalked it up to Barry being Barry if it wasn’t for the fact that he could see his charger on the kitchen bench from where he was sitting.

**

He considers that something is wrong again about two weeks later. Barry has just made a confession to the entirety of Team Flash: he created an alternate timeline. He went decades back in time and fucked up their world, but not for him. Not for him even though he begged and cried, and has been grieving inconsolably for almost a year. He is beside himself with hurt and confusion.

Cisco is pretty confident in expecting to get home to Barry holed up in his room, not anywhere that Cisco has to deal with him. However, he opens the door to a gush of wind so strong, the flowers by the door wilt at its mercy.

There are a pair of scissors cluttering in the sink, and fresh finger-prints on the stainless steel.

All too conveniently, Barry is nowhere in sight.

Cisco’s knuckles curl white, and his tense frame all-but-marches over to the door of Barry’s room. However, before Cisco can even contemplate which of Barry’s possessions would make the most lasting bruise if thrown angrily in his general direction, he realises Barry has left the apartment completely.

Barry’s eager avoidance is practically expected in the face of him telling Cisco about flashpoint.

But in all honesty, even if there was something a little un-barry-like about the rushed exit. Cisco’s too angry to care.

**

Their apartment feels empty.

Even emptier than it already felt when Cisco didn’t know why Barry was avoiding him.

It seems that whenever Cisco’s there, Barry’s not.

And though it is with out a doubt what Cisco asked for (“Barry I just need you to give me space, okay? A lot of it. Like a ‘take-notes-from-the-lightyears-of-space-stars-give-each-other’ amount of space.”), there’s a part of him that’s just tired with being angry.

So when Cisco takes a step at reconciliation, bringing up one of their in-jokes about cell-structure as he chews avidly on a gummy worm, and is met with a scrunched brow…

Well, he’s disappointed to say the least.

What should have been a huge victory for them only reminds Cisco of every reason he is mad at Barry in the first place.

An awkwardness lingers tangibly between them, as Barry realises what’s just happened. Before he can correct himself, however, Cisco up and leaves with a dismissive shake of his head.

**

They don’t talk for a while after that.

At least, not in a way that inspires any sort of insight into Barry’s side of things. Cisco thinks he’s done a good job at making how he feels about hearing it pretty damn clear.

But, they do see each other.

With their line of work, not to mention their living situation, it’s sort of unavoidable.

Barry hovers around him like he’s walking on egg shells. Constantly looking over to him, trying to gauge his reaction. He’s always looking to test the waters: trying to toe the line between not breaking boundaries, and not unnecessarily distancing himself from Cisco.

And despite the big part of Cisco that just wants to push Barry away, there’s a bigger part that wears down, feels like its breaking every time he does.

Even before they go out into the field, and Vibe only arrives in time to see Flash get two major organs kebabed, Cisco knew that the time for holding grudges was long past.

**

It takes half a second to portal them back to Star Labs.

But Barry’s already so pale, and losing a lot of blood very quickly.

He watches as Iris holds Barry’s hand, and Caitlin pulls a rusty steel bar out from his stomach.

Cisco’s chest is tight, like he can’t breathe.

He’s only just decided he’s ready to forgive Barry, and now what? He might not ever get to? In what universe is that fair?

He watches Barry writhe and sweat, eventually blacking out from the pain.

**

When he wakes up, Cisco is sitting by his bedside, chewing gum.

Barry shifts up, already offering a tired apology, but Cisco simply shakes his head, reaching for his hand.

The acceptance goes unspoken.

There’s a croak in Barry’s voice as he breaks the tension, his lips lifting in a nervous smile “So uh- cell structure…”

Cisco’s smile copies Barry’s, reaching his eyes in a way Barry hasn’t seen since he got back.

**

They get a long better after that: watching movies when they should be doing work, throwing popcorn into each others’ mouths, playing Mario Kart with Iris on weekends.

Sometimes Barry will smile so wide at him, he feels his whole chest light up at the very sight.

Cisco can’t help but wonder, though, with the way Barry acts sometimes: the longing looks, the too long touches, the nightmares.

In fact, pretty much whenever Cisco’s not tossing and turning himself, he can hear Barry doing the same.

***

Things come to a head one night when Cisco wakes up from a dream. It’s one of the recurring ones he’s been having lately, about a life so close to his own he knows that it probably was.

This particular one had involved Barry and Iris holding him after Dante’s funeral. They were in an unfamiliar, but oddly homey living room.

He’d been crying into Barry’s shoulder, feeling like he could barely breathe, when Iris started running her fingers through his hair, rubbing slow, comforting circles into his arm. They were only just getting him to calm down when, very jarringly, he is woken up.

Still disorientated from the dream, Cisco doesn’t quite process the loud crash, and the defeated whisper of “Fuck” that follows it. Instead, he stumbles into the living room, confused. He pulls the parts of his hair that have fallen in the front of his face behind his ear, and squints his eyes a little in order to see properly.

“Barry?” He whispers.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I’m cleaning it up, you can go back to sleep.”

It’s dark, but he can hear the shakiness in Barry’s voice, and make out the large gash on the palm of his hand.

He sighs deeply, because it’s clear something is wrong. Something bigger than a once-off, middle-of-the-night freak-out.

He grabs a paper towel from their kitchenette, twirling the paper around his hand and ripping it from the roll. Then, gestures for Barry to stand up, and move away from the broken glass:

Barry closes the few steps between them, cradling his injured hand to keep from bleeding on their tile.

He can’t seem to make eye contact, but he winces slightly as Cisco presses the towel to the cut.

“What’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing. It stung a little”

“Barry. You’re crying,”

Barry shrugs dismissively at that, wincing again as his movement chafes the cut, “Okay. It stung a lot,”

Cisco raises a disbelieving brow, which Barry can’t help but smile at when he glances up. “It’s fine, it’s just… I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Since I came back.”

“Came back?”

“From flashpoint.”

Cisco can’t seem to meet his eyes at that, he just nods at the ground, “Oh.”

Barry swallows, pursing his lips to stop from crying as he looks anywhere else other than in Cisco’s direction.

“Barry,”

Barry begins hurriedly wiping at his face with his good hand, rushing to correct himself. “No, I know. I know, I’m sorry.”

There’s a beat of silence, and Cisco wants to say something to make it better but there’s nothing: he’s grabbing at straws.

“C’mere,” Cisco pulls Barry against his chest, holding him tight with one arm, as his other keeps grip on his injured hand.

Barry tightens up under the close contact before falling into it.

They stay pressed together, until Barry takes a short stuttering breath and pulls away.

“You’ve vibed it, right?”

“Huh?”

“The other timeline… the original one?” Barry looks almost guilty asking.

Cisco bites his lip, “Oh… yeah. I wasn’t gonna say anything,”

“How can you look at me?”

The hint of desperation in Barry’s voice pulls Cisco’s insides into knots. His mouth forms around words, but a silence lingers just a little too long for it to be comfortable.

There’s no denying it, the innate wrongness of everything, how Cisco had wished Barry dead more than once in the heat of initially finding out what he’d done.

“I ruined everything-” Barry continues, “even if you don’t wanna be with me. You and Iris, you were so happy. And now it’s like you were never even-”

Barry cuts himself off just before his voice breaks, pressing his lips together and looking away.

“Barr, look at me.”

Barry does. A little quicker than is strictly human. His eyes are heavy with something indescribable. It makes Cisco’s chest ache.

Cisco presses the paper towel a little more firmly into Barry’s hand, where the cut on his palm is healing. Then, wraps his fingers around it to keep it from trembling, never breaking eye contact.

“I’m mad at you.” He deadpans, suddenly feeling like he’s let go of a tonne of bricks he’s been carrying around with him for months. “I’m so fucking mad at you I can hardly stand it. You made a mistake of epic proportions, and the fact that you made that mistake for you when you couldn’t make it for me… it hurts. A lot.”

Barry seems to shrink at the words, but he doesn’t look away. “But… what’s done is done. You can’t keep trying to fix it, force it back how it was. And you can’t keep beating yourself up over failing at this impossible task you’ve set for yourself… You can’t keep trying to restore a reality that doesn’t exist anymore.”

Barry looks down again at that, ashamed.

“It’s not gonna be like it was for you,” Cisco says, because it has to be said, but with the way Barry’s trying to hide how much it hurts to hear, it feels like pushing glass up his throat, “And you’re just gonna have to live with that.”

Barry nods, still not meeting Cisco’s eyes. His face is wet with silent tears, and his lips are tilted upward in a forced smile.

Cisco lets up the pressure on Barry’s hand, removing the napkin to see the cut is scarring.

There’s a moment of stillness between them before Cisco walks the bloody paper-towel to the bin, and Barry goes to pick up the rest of the broken glass.

Just as the conversation seems to be over: Cisco standing with his back to the kitchen in the arch of his bedroom door, and Barry quietly cleaning the rest of the broken glass shards. Cisco speaks. “It’s… different. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t still love you, Barr. You’re my best friend.” Barry tenses at the last words, but manages to school his expression enough that Cisco doesn’t feel like he’s said something wrong. “I love you… Even when-“ He cuts himself off. Then, as if reaffirming the thought, he continues, "I love you. And…”

Cisco exhales deeply, with his entire body, as if letting go of the weight of the world. “I wanna forgive you.” He says, his hand spread gently over the doorframe, “But, if we’re ever gonna move past this, you’re gonna need to figure out how to forgive yourself.”

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive Criticism and feedback are always appreciated.


End file.
